General Sportscar Chat thread

[FIRE]

Originally Posted by v8supes

As this is the general sportscar chat thread i felt like this was the best place to discuss this. Larry Ten Voorde the 3x Porsche Supercup, 4x German Carrera Cup and 1x Italian Carrera Cup champion has announced his retirement from Carrera Cup racing. I wonder where he is going now.... Hopefully Porsche have given him a contract for their GT3 customers.

Would be deserved

[chernaudi]

As far as more cars on track, all I can say is just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Look at Sebring in 2012 (the simultaneous ALMS and WEC race). I believe around 60 cars on the grid. Sebring could accommodate the full WEC and ALMS fields, but it came at the cost of a lot of FCYs and incidents--it was the most wreck filled Sebring until 2014 (might not have had the quantity of incidents, but had 1 or maybe 2 red flags for incident clean up).


We do have to remember that even in say the ALMS's hayday where in general you did have overall a quality field, there were still cars of differing performance potential, and drivers of different ability levels, both of which contributed to incidents, as well as now in IMSA and the WEC, close competition driving drivers to make low percentage moves of the obvious "if it works, you're a hero, if it fails, you're a zero" type. And we've seen plenty of that in IMSA and the WEC this year, as well as some flat out rough driving pure and simple in both series.


I also feel that I must add that in say 2008 your average ALMS race had about 25-30 cars entered at most usually (more for Sebring and PLM). Normal WEC races have about 40 cars, and IMSA races vary between like 30-55 or so cars depending on the event. And as stated, the ALMS had no problem gaining their fair share of mishaps with a relatively small field.



The more cars you add, you increase car density, in addition to already stated variables. And hence, you do increase the potential for accidents and such. Yes, I can understand the desire for wanting more, but there has to be a quantity vs quality cutoff.

[GT3_Fan]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

As far as more cars on track, all I can say is just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Look at Sebring in 2012 (the simultaneous ALMS and WEC race). I believe around 60 cars on the grid. Sebring could accommodate the full WEC and ALMS fields, but it came at the cost of a lot of FCYs and incidents--it was the most wreck filled Sebring until 2014 (might not have had the quantity of incidents, but had 1 or maybe 2 red flags for incident clean up).


We do have to remember that even in say the ALMS's hayday where in general you did have overall a quality field, there were still cars of differing performance potential, and drivers of different ability levels, both of which contributed to incidents, as well as now in IMSA and the WEC, close competition driving drivers to make low percentage moves of the obvious "if it works, you're a hero, if it fails, you're a zero" type. And we've seen plenty of that in IMSA and the WEC this year, as well as some flat out rough driving pure and simple in both series.


I also feel that I must add that in say 2008 your average ALMS race had about 25-30 cars entered at most usually (more for Sebring and PLM). Normal WEC races have about 40 cars, and IMSA races vary between like 30-55 or so cars depending on the event. And as stated, the ALMS had no problem gaining their fair share of mishaps with a relatively small field.



The more cars you add, you increase car density, in addition to already stated variables. And hence, you do increase the potential for accidents and such. Yes, I can understand the desire for wanting more, but there has to be a quantity vs quality cutoff.

One of my favorite daytona 24's was the 2020 race. Only had 38 car grid. But the race was so clean and had very few safety car time. Because of reliability of cars these days there were 32 cars at the finish I think. 4 of those 6 drop outs were in the last 6 hours.

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by FIRE

More cars, more crashes, more yellows and FCY.

And you need at least 8 to 10 cars to have a class.



Don't get wrong, I would love to see LMP2 back but don't think it is realistic.

Think we have a better chance of it back with the new regs and hate to say it but likely a few Hypercar teams possibly back to P2 with less factory money


I also find it disturbing how much it appears everyone wants to blame the Ams for incidents like the pros NEVER cause issues. A Pro bashing their way through a P2 they don't want to wait for is a PRO driver issue not Am.

[chernaudi]

Ams do cause their fair share of problems, but so do pros. Ams over the past few years have actually helped their cause by generally stepping up their game, and becoming more competitive, let alone less of a hazard. That for sure isn't like it was back about 10-20 years ago where some ams were simply a hazard to themselves and others out there--and often not helped by being in crap cars with little OEM support or backing. Granted, on that front, there were cars that were also simply so bad that even professional teams and drivers couldn't make chicken salad out of chicken droppings.

One of the IMO odd things in IMSA and especially the WEC this year is there's not a ton of pro vs am incidents, but rather there's been a lot of pro vs pro and am vs am fratricide out there from what I've seen and gathered. Which that's just down IMO to closer competition and drivers feeling like they have to make things happen, especially in battles for position.


Just look at NASCAR road races. The drivers are more talented than ever at it IMO, but they don't do impressions any favors due to getting desperate, since a win at a road race can punch your ticket into the playoffs or the next round of said playoffs (and said playoff system does obviously contribute to the problem IMO).

[flatlandsman]

Ams usually cause problems FOR pros in my eyes, because they are less predictable. Yes a pro is finely honed and will possibly go for gaps that are not on, but against another pro this often is fine, it is against Ams it can result in issues as they are not on the same wavelength.

This is why penalties against Pro for doing anything are there, to stop them taking advantage.

I think the real issue is here you are asking Am drivers to behave as much like Pro's as possible when in the past they could just get in and your team would take the pain for a stint, now they are fitter, train harder because the cars have to be driven flat out all race, this means they are not as slow as they were, so you get this disparity at times

[chernaudi]

I don't agree. I remember back in the days of the ALMS and LMS that there were some truly god-awful am drivers out there who were just simply a hazard to themselves and others by either being unpredictable or just being a mobile chicane. You don't really see that anymore. The ams do behave a lot more like pros, and IMO that's for the better. They've become both quicker and more predictable, and hence easier to deal with. They know that to run up front, they had to get better, and that didn't just meant getting faster, it meant being a more proficient driver overall.


As I said, the irony of this is that while there's been few pro vs am incidents, there's been a TON of pro vs pro and am vs am incidents this year between IMSA and the WEC. No shortage of that stuff to go around in either series from what I've seen. It for me really started at Le Mans, and in both IMSA and the WEC it's sort of gone downhill from there.

[J Jay]

Of all recent seasons, this one has been the worst I can remember for driving standards across the board - amateurs and professional drivers. At any point during the race, most of the drivers (at least half) are pros...


Don't let the high-profile am incidents cloud your judgement: its the pro drivers that need a talking to the most.

[flatlandsman]

I am fairly new to watching full races of WEC and IMSA so cannt go back that far.

My main issue is that a lot of yellow flags seem to be caused by Am drivers or bronzes. I am sure this happens with [pro guys too. But during Petit it always seemed to be an LMP2 wobbling back onto track with an Am aboard, it gets tedious. But as I say it is to be expected.

This clearly is likely to happen. Pro incidents tend to be more Verstappen esque, just silly petulant racing drivers arguing over the same piece of road, it is a different sort of incident, but a similar outcome, sometimes worse. I think some are excusable with track conditions and cold tyres. but this is easily remedied is it not?

[chernaudi]

Originally Posted by J Jay

Of all recent seasons, this one has been the worst I can remember for driving standards across the board - amateurs and professional drivers. At any point during the race, most of the drivers (at least half) are pros...


Don't let the high-profile am incidents cloud your judgement: its the pro drivers that need a talking to the most.

As I said, it's not a pro vs am deal. The vast majority of incidents I've seen or read about being reported on here in a WEC or IMSA race involve drivers of purportedly similar skill levels. So there's been quite a few am vs am incidents, and most of the big incidents were actually pro vs pro. Some of it down to carelessness, some of it down even simply to pure and simple rough driving (Buemi at COTA being the best example of the latter).


It IMO is maybe the law of unintended consequences on several fronts. There's a lot more runoff areas, so mistakes are punished less severely by the track, and are now judgement calls by the race director and/or stewards. The competition is closer, and cars are more restricted and controlled by homolgation and other rules, so drivers get more desperate to make something happen. Ams aren't just mobile chicanes anymore, and the better ones are almost as good as any pro out there. So you don't face the same uncertainty about who's behind the wheel as in the past. That contributes also to drivers racing each other harder. It's all sort of a snowball and compounding effect, where it's not just one factor, but multiple ones.


Also, race control are sometimes reluctant to do much for the "sake of the show" and start out lenient with penalties, but end up having to do a total 180 late in the season when they realize that they gave the drivers too much rope to hang themselves with.